On the evening of 3 May 2007, three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared from her family's rented holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal. Left alone with her two younger siblings whilst her parents and their friends dined nearby, it was assumed that Madeleine had been abducted. A year on, Spanish-based veteran investigative journalist Danny Collins looks at the clues and the false leads gathered over 12 months of meticulous in-depth investigation in an attempt to piece together just what happened on that fateful night.

Every school and public library should update its resources on Spain with this lively and succinct narrative of Spain's long and rich historical experience. Emphasizing people rather than abstract developments, this narrative makes Spanish history readable and engaging. Based on the most recent scholarship, it examines the politics, society, economy, and culture of Spain chronologically, focusing on the last two centuries. Pierson, a noted authority on Spanish history, traces Spain's foundations in the Roman empire and Muslim conquest to its golden age in the late Middle Ages, its subsequent decline, and its struggle to build a democratic government and modern economy following the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. The work provides a timeline of events in Spanish history, brief biographies of key figures, and a bibliographic essay of interest to students and general readers. An introductory chapter offers an overview of Spain today, its geography, government and politics, economy, religion, and culture. The next few chapters discuss its earliest cultures, its place in the Roman empire, its Christianization and years as a Germanic kingdom, and its incorporation in 711 C.E. by military conquest into the world of Islam. The energies developed in the Christian reconquest of Spain led to its embarkation on the conquest of an overseas empire in the Americas and the Philippines that lasted for more than 300 years and had a profound effect on global history. The interests of the Habsburg (1516-1700) and Bourbon (1700-1808, 1814-1868, and 1875-1931) dynasties on the Spanish throne made Spain a major player in European power politics into the years of the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars. By 1825, its resources drained, Spain painfully adjusted to straightened circumstances, endured civil wars and dictatorships, and struggled to build a democratic government and modern economy, which it has accomplished today.

From 1950 to the present day, there have been almost 900 long-term missing people in Ireland. The equivalent of a vibrant village, all gone, vanished without a trace. Where did they go? Are they dead or still alive somewhere? How many have been murdered? How many killers have got away with their crimes? RTÉ journalist Barry Cummins has reported on the unsolved cases of Ireland's missing for decades. In this new edition of his bestselling book, he examines the latest leads and developments of Ireland's most high-profile missing cases, including the women who disappeared under eerily similar circumstances in the 1990s and whose bodies have never been found. Written with the assistance of the gardaí and the families concerned, Missing is a comprehensive and shocking account of the cases that have in turn fascinated, puzzled and horrified the Irish public. It also examines the possibility that there may be a serial killer out there who has gone to extraordinary lengths to evade justice, leaving open the possibility that they could strike again.

This volume brings together a team of leading scholars in Spanish studies to interrogate the contemporary significance of the medieval past, offering a counterbalance to intellectual withdrawal from urgent public debates.

Though tourism now plays a recognized role in historical research and regional studies, the study of popular touristic images remains sidelined by chronological histories and objective statistics. Further, Arizona remains underexplored as an early twentieth-century tourism destination when compared with nearby California and New Mexico. With the notable exception of the Grand Canyon, little has been written about tourism in the early days of Arizona’s statehood. Mapping Wonderlands fills part of this gap in existing regional studies by looking at early popular pictorial maps of Arizona. These cartographic representations of the state utilize formal mapmaking conventions to create a place-based state history. They introduce illustrations, unique naming conventions, and written narratives to create carefully visualized landscapes that emphasize the touristic aspects of Arizona. Analyzing the visual culture of tourism in illuminating detail, this book documents how Arizona came to be identified as an appealing tourism destination. Providing a historically situated analysis, Dori Griffin draws on samples from a comprehensive collection of materials generated to promote tourism during Arizona’s first half-century of statehood. She investigates the relationship between natural and constructed landscapes, visual culture, and narratives of place. Featuring sixty-six examples of these aesthetically appealing maps, the book details how such maps offered tourists and other users a cohesive and storied image of the state. Using historical documentation and rhetorical analysis, this book combines visual design and historical narrative to reveal how early-twentieth-century mapmakers and map users collaborated to imagine Arizona as a tourist’s paradise.